


The King's Ward

by TheIcyQueen



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Post-Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-05 01:55:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17315903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIcyQueen/pseuds/TheIcyQueen
Summary: Xehanort always knew that Ienzo understood more than he let on. He wouldn't stand for the others' hypocrisy any longer.





	The King's Ward

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by whippetpuli on tumblr!

They all had their explanations for his reticence—Ansem insisted the boy needed more love before he could be expected to overcome what he’d seen, Even ticked psychoses off on his fingers and claimed that failure to speak was a mark of untold intelligence, Aeleus would posit in his quiet rumble of a voice that all he needed was _time_ —but Xehanort knew better. Ienzo’s silence was nothing more than a mask, a mysterious, pretty little thing to fool anyone bold enough to brave eye contact. It was a trick he knew as well, had used on the very same people, and yet none ever seemed to catch wise. Ienzo would speak when it best served him, when it would cut the deepest.

He liked the boy. He had known from the very instant they were introduced that he had stumbled upon something monumental, anomalous, _dangerous_. The other Apprentices had taken some warming up to, truth be told, all so full of their own breed of distrust and suspicion, but Ienzo…Ienzo had been his unequivocal favorite from the very first. There was already a darkness in him, coiled tight like a sleeping viper, waiting until something crept close enough to strike.

Ienzo stood only knee-high but walked with the purpose of someone decades his senior; chin up, shoulders back, light on his feet, he was much less a child and much more a tiny wisp of a specter. They called him a prodigy, but that didn’t scratch the surface of the truth—he had seen the boy correct Ansem, had seen Even bend to his level instead of sneering down his nose, had watched as he cowed each of the Guards in turn. He had a strange sort of magnetism, at once drawing people in and forcing them away, his round little face offset by the horrible knowledge in his big, sad eyes.

He could chill a room by simply walking past it, could silence even the most raucous laughter. The air crackled with ozone and the sick stench of blood when he grew angry, pages ruffled in the whirl of his wake, and even though his lab coat was still many sizes too large for him it draped across his frail shoulders like a king’s mantle.

Turning him would take minimal effort. There were those days where Xehanort wondered if the boy would lose himself to the creeping darkness before preparations were complete. He could sense it even then, the crawling tendrils of hatred and rage weaving their way through the child’s ribcage, squeezing where it mattered the very most. To his chagrin, he was not the _only_ one to take notice.

He had been walking past the study when he was given pause, Ansem’s voice uncharacteristically gentle from behind the cracked door. “There is so much _more_ to people than you know,” the wise man said, and Xehanort  leaned himself against the doorframe, still obscured by shadow, but able to hear it all, “There is _good_ in them. Kindness and caring and _love_. You will understand when you’re older—when you’ve seen both sides of the coin. You cannot harbor such animosity towards them, young one. The only one you will hurt is _yourself_.”

And of course Ienzo knew better—he had seen Ansem slam the door on Xehanort and Even, had heard his voice boom in reprimand whenever rumors of their research reached his ears. He had watched him take in all manner of curs and strays in turn, shirking them the moment their novelty wore off or their ideals began to threaten his own. He had heard Dilan and Braig snicker behind his back, had been the brunt of Even’s frustrations, had suffered dismally at the hand of his late parents’ neglect. Still he stood there, silently attentive in the bright lights before Ansem’s desk, nodding at all the right intervals, scuffing his shoes against the carpet in a manner much too perfect to reflect _genuine_ sheepishness.

“He’s wrong, you know,” Xehanort spoke softly as Ienzo made a swift exit from Ansem’s study. The child broke stride for a moment, glancing over his shoulder to examine him with those unfathomable eyes of his. “There can be no light without shadow, yet darkness _thrives_ in the absence of light. Even those who believe themselves good have something terrible in them, waiting to blossom.” He glanced to the sliver of study he could see through the door, “Ansem thinks himself so wise, so _benevolent_ …but think of all those he’s wronged with his orders and prerogatives. Even _he_ has it inside of him, the darkness.” Ienzo watched him carefully, mouth set in a tiny line of contemplation. “Think on it,” Xehanort continued, “He calls you his ward, his _son_ …and leaves you to Even.” He raised and lowered his shoulders in a shrug, “What sort of kind, caring, _loving_ man would do that?” He could not stop the smirk that twisted at his lips as Ienzo turned and walked away.

There was so much of himself in the boy—almost eerily so. Ienzo saw everything, he heard everything, he simply _knew_ the goings-on of the Castle, oftentimes well before anyone else. He could fit in all the small places, could skulk about entirely undetected. Oftentimes, he had managed to make it to the other end of the kingdom by the time anyone realized he was missing. He understood people in a manner almost empathic, and it was for that reason that the others found it so difficult to serve him any sort of lesson.

“You can’t just go slicing into _everything_ , boy,” Even’s voice rang out, sharp and shrill as it bounced off of the laboratory’s implements. Xehanort continued leafing through his own work, eyes never leaving the tight lines of text, pretending he didn’t hear what was impossible to ignore. “You know _full well_ Lord Ansem doesn’t want us tampering with the darkness in such a manner—what would _he_ say?” From the corner of his eye he watched as Ienzo stared back at Even, impassive and unimpressed. Xehanort, on the other hand, was _quite_ moved. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t felt a monumental swell of pride upon interrupting the boy in his work. A rat’s heart was nothing compared to the complexities of what lay throbbing in a human chest, but it was a _start_ , and Ienzo had plucked it out so masterfully, collecting its very essence before Even had stormed in and the vial had shattered, sending wisps of light and dark to dissolve among the fluorescents. “Even _vermin_ have their place, child. We don’t open them up just because _we can_.”

Ienzo showed no signs of regret, but averted his eyes all the same, something that Even seemed to take as understanding, as he bustled back out of the lab a moment later with a cluck of his tongue. Xehanort shook his head slowly, _feeling_ the waves of indignation radiating off of the small body in his periphery. Ienzo had watched Even dissect and rend countless creatures, examining organs and taking notes, discarding useless pieces and parts in trash bins without so much as a backward glance. He had seen the light in his eyes whenever experimentation was mentioned, had seen the old schematics and sketches from way back when, in the times before vivisection had fallen so woefully out of style.

“Not to pry, but he _does_ have a point,” Xehanort sighed, setting his papers down, correcting an errant error with a dark slash of ink. “Vermin _do_ have their place. Below _us_. There will always be those lesser than you, Ienzo—the weak, the unintelligent, the _rabble_. And it will be up to _you_ to decide what their true worth is: the pointless little lives they lead, or the information we can extract from them. Just look at how Even treats those who aren’t quite as quick as he is…have you _heard_ the way he speaks to the Guards? Much less the other citizens of our lovely home…It doesn’t seem he’s in much of a place to lecture you on these matters, hmm?” He turned, surprised but pleased to see the furrowing of the child’s brow. “Hypocrites are the very _worst_ type of vermin, don’t you think?” Ienzo eyed him warily before fetching something to sweep up the shards of glass, and Xehanort allowed himself a quiet chuckle.

People started disappearing from the Garden soon after.

**Author's Note:**

> Reupload from 1/10/15.


End file.
